HW/SW Linux certification

HW/SW Linux certification

Posted Dec 16, 2005 2:38 UTC (Fri) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385)
In reply to: HW/SW Linux certification by bkw1a
Parent article: "Just works with Linux"

I seem to keep running into the opposite problem: Someone asks me to install a Linux binary they found somewhere (in some cases after they paid six figures for it), and I hear that the thing supposedly only runs properly on six-year-old versions of Red Hat. Often the word "run" is generous, and in a number of cases I have forced vendors to admit that their software limps like a wounded waterfowl at best on any Linux version, but there is no hope at all of this software working on a modern Linux distro.

A quick phone call to the vendor followed by some not-so-quick escalation up the support ladder and I end up talking to some engineer who is working on porting the application to a three-year-old version of Red Hat. It should be ready for general release next quarter.

Fast forward a year, and the sales weasel comes to install their "new" software on the now-four-year-old version of Red Hat. I thoughtfully dig through my CD-R archive and provide a machine with exactly the specific old Red Hat version requested. I even provide a second machine with all the official updates to that Red Hat version applied. Both are running a vanilla configuration unless the weasel specified otherwise. Neither works out of the box with the weasel's software, although they fail in different ways.

These days I'm sick of playing the "supported platform" game. I just tell the weasel what we have on our desktops ("here's the install CD guys, have fun"), and that we'll pay only for whatever parts of their software work after they are installed.

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